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I danced but one waltz and fell into my chair by Mr. Tolstoy, where I listened to music and conversation much of the night. You were all so charming and bright, but I had awakened too early the night before and could not keep my eyelid shades up. In a few moments of drowse, a dream-poem found and sailed me back to the farm, where remnants of the sea floated and mingled in the strange dance of the mind. The room spun slowly down to stillness.
Doorstep of a dream
In a dream, a house is my self,
each room an aspect,
their windows a glaze of eyes,
as these poem lines
are my skin, the letters ears—
small shells
that hear the weeping
overflow of the apple tree,
which exhales tales of the sea
in waves, of its lost city,
fragged stones on a mythic beach,
which is anyway
and after all lozenged
here in the house of me.
On the doorstep of a dream,
or in the sand of this poem
leaves fallen on the ground
are my next hands
recasting what would otherwise
be blown, buried or
forgotten, into this day's
room, with a window, open.
Poetry should be heard.
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20 comments:
As you wake, Ruth, I am headed to bed--fully intending to use this poem as a pillow. Maybe it will bequeath a dream or two. There is indeed a feeling of a very gentle sea in this, all among the weeping apple and loose myths rolling on the beach.Most beautiful. Thank you for singing me to sleep.
Thank you, Hedge. So we play tag, and now I wish you nighty night, pleasant dreams, and hallowed poems.
ruth i wish i'd come across you last night - i would have asked you to say those words to me . . . . as it is i'm just getting started at the party and hosting a dawnfast which is poorly named because really it involves lots of eating but the word came up in a game of exquisite corpse and so there it is. have a lovely day. recharge! steven
steven, your companion, dawnfast, exquisite corpse and breakfast baguettes were just what I needed to get the day moving, at just the right pace. Thank you.
i love the way you weave your words ... seems so effortless.
O sweet, and a perfect exempla of how the poem is the thought of a dream's beating heart. I've been reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space and he asserts that poetic imagination abides in the space of home -- home of our childhood, home we live our lives in, home we dream of. Interiority is all about the home-ward huants. This is soft and lilting, wonderful internal rhtymes, making me see the sleeper/poet through rustling, gossamer white curtains, breeze and breath as one. Loved it, Ruth. - Brendan
So perfect Ruth ...
Kamana, thanks so much. And I love how you weave your photographs. Your current photo in . . . and then there are those days is a weave of beauty!
Thank you, Brendan.
And thank you for the book info. I am excited by it and have just downloaded it onto my Kindle. Architecture of the imagination, this catches me on fire in my interior house.
Tangentially, my sister-in-law has since a little girl felt and pondered the energy of rooms when first entering. The shape, lighting, arrangement, the spirit of them.
Seriously, I would like to have fifty conversations right now on where this is leading me. We can choose how we create our homes. I can bring Paris and Istanbul to the farm. And how about this . . . just about everyone who has visited our farm has been so ecstatic meeting "her" we have come to believe that maybe nearly everyone has farm in their inner landscape of home somewhere . . .
OK, gotta stop, or I'll never stop.
Thanks, and thanks for reading Reena.
Very lovely, Ruth. This is, indeed, what you do. You take fallen leaves, the relics of yesterday's experiences, and recast "what would otherwise be blown, buried or forgotten," into THIS DAY'S ROOM, where the windows are open, inviting others to see what you have seen. Such is the work of the poet.
This tree was my pear tree last week. This week, most of the flowers are gone.
Thank you, George. And thanks, always, for how you witness my recycling. Have a wonderful weekend.
Hi, Ann. Extraordinary how you are welcoming spring in NZ as we are beginning to welcome winter. Yes, the leaves here look much like the blossoms in spring.
Ah thank you for that, Shers, a city where I lived and would like to sail back, at least with WB Yeats.
One afterthoughting comment: the title's much too weak for so charming a poem. It's a draft -- go deeper into this house and find something to set on its mantle.- B
I hear you, Brendan, and I much appreciate your attention to the title (something you are good at paying attention to). I'm thinking of something with "vestiges" . . . like "These vestiges."
I'll keep working on it. Tell me if you think of any suggestions.
The house of me ... I love it. As you know I have lots of house dreams.
poetic house of self, i think, and how we move in this world, or how we should move, without borders, becoming, unbecoming, being made and unmade, house, windows, skin, tree, beach, the sand of this poem, leaves your next hands. there is such life inside of this living beyond limits. i am pleased. i smile. inside of the poem, on a hill in a breeze, i am.
gorgeous, ruth.
xo
erin
If Brendan isn't listening, may I just say, I love the title?
Doorstep of a dream... Like the Nat King Cole song, 'Now my consolation is in the stardust of a song'....
You won't really change it will you??
Please include this one in the collection? (If you are taking requests...) :)
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